634 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
high freight rates, discrimination in favor of large producers and shippers,
and high fees charged by railroad- controlled grain warehouses. Critics of the
railroads came together in the Patrons of Husbandry, or Grange, which moved
to establish cooperatives for storing and marketing farm output in the hope
of forcing the carriers “to take our produce at a fair price.” Founded in 1867,
the Grange claimed more than 700,000 members by the mid- 1870s. Its mem-
bers called on state governments to establish fair freight rates and warehouse
charges. In several states, the Grange succeeded in having commissions estab-
lished to investigate— and, in some cases, regulate— railroad practices.
At the same time, the labor movement, revitalized during the Civil War,
demanded laws establishing eight hours as a legal day’s work. Seven northern
legislatures passed such laws, but since most lacked strong means of enforce-
ment they remained dead letters. But the efforts of farmers and workers to use
the power of the state to counteract the inequalities of the Gilded Age inspired
a far- reaching debate on the relationship between political and economic free-
dom in an industrial society.
FREEDOM IN THE GILDED AGE
The Social Problem
As the United States matured into an industrial economy, Americans struggled
to make sense of the new social order. Debates over political economy engaged
the attention of millions, reaching far beyond the tiny academic world into the
public sphere inhabited by self- educated workingmen and farmers, reformers
of all kinds, newspaper editors, and politicians. This broad public discussion
produced thousands of books, pamphlets, and articles on such technical issues
as land taxation and currency reform, as well as widespread debate over the
social and ethical implications of economic change.
Many Americans sensed that something had gone wrong in the nation’s
social development. Talk of “better classes,” “respectable classes,” and “danger-
ous classes” dominated public discussion, and bitter labor strife seemed to have
become the rule. During the Gilded Age, Congress and a number of states estab-
lished investigating committees to inquire into the relations between labor
and capital. Their hearings produced powerful evidence of distrust between
employees and employers. In 1881, the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics reported that virtually every worker it interviewed in Fall River, the
nation’s largest center of textile production, complained of overwork, poor
housing, and tyrannical employers.